Saturday, 14 February 2015

Nameless: Experience

A short hand signal behind her back was all Nessa needed to do as the soldiers advanced from both ends of the short canyon. In a sudden flurry of movement the sisters threw knives upwards to the waiting archers, only injuring one slightly but certainly making them miss. Indas hurled Ash's old spear again and that found its target true, sending the impaled body down onto the advancing line at the rear. Making the most of the distraction, the huge woman followed through with her heavy hammer smashing skulls and bones through helmets and armor.

The sisters charged the front line, with one attacking high and the other low - interchanging as needed. The round shields of the guards were not enough to cover both. Those that parried high had their legs cut out from beneath them. Those that parried low had their throats cut. One poor sap even got beheaded. The girls were not invincible though, and they too were taking their share of cuts, wounds and bruises. Indas even took two arrows to the same shoulder. She responded by knocking the archer off his ledge with a thrown helmet followed by angrily stamping on his face until his brains exploded out of his skull.

Such was the problem of having soldiers with no one to fight: training doesn't match actual field experience. They were making little mistakes, deflecting attacks into allies, not taking into account how the wind would affect arrow trajectory, and simply losing their nerve at the sight of comrades dying. When only a quarter of them remained, their morale broke and they turned and ran - with even more of their number getting killed in the process.

The announcer tried to flee at that point too, but Nessa managed to knock him down and get atop of him with a particularly dull knife. His screams of suffering echoed across the sands as she brutally stabbed him so many times that at the end it appeared there was a large, bloody hole in his chest.

With her fury spent she finally, painfully stood and looked at the small camp the soldiers had come from. There were cages with familiar people trapped inside them. The sewer folk. Nerith was already there, limping slowly around and trying to open the cages. It took all of Nessa's will to do the same, nodding slightly to words of thanks as more and more of them were set free. Finally exhaustion got the better of her and she just slumped down to rest a moment against one of the opened cages. Everything went black.